Corrections official: Upholstery program for ex-offenders never sought referrals

Jun. 10, 2012

Louisville Metro Councilwoman Barbara Shanklin

Written by

Dan Klepal

The Courier-Journal

Over the past five years, Louisville Metro Councilwoman Barbara Shanklin has overseen a job-training program for ex-offenders that, records show, served Shanklin and her family more than released convicts.

In fact, the records provide no evidence that any ex-offenders attended the upholstery-training program, on which more than $30,000 of city tax dollars was spent between March 2007 and November 2011, when it was shut down by Mayor Greg Fischer’s administration as an inappropriate use of taxpayer money.

And Shanklin said she could not verify whether any ex-offenders participated in the program.

The program was bankrolled from the metro government’s general fund, with money routed through Metro Corrections. It was halted after corrections Director Mark Bolton expressed concern about the program to the city’s chief financial officer, Steve Rowland.

Bolton said in a Courier-Journal interview that his department was never asked to refer ex-offenders to the program, which he described as “goofy” in an email to a corrections staff member just before it was halted.

“Based on my review of the records and monthly invoices … I find the program has not served a viable or sizable number of clientele,” Bolton wrote in a Nov. 14 letter to instructor Linda Haywood, notifying her that the program was being “terminated.”

“In fact, most of the records that you have provided indicate only one or two people in attendance per session,” Bolton wrote.

Rowland has turned over all information about the program to the city’s internal auditor, who is expected to issue a report soon.

The program’s invoices and sign-in sheets, obtained by The Courier-Journal through an open-records request, show that once Haywood was required to keep track of attendees starting in late 2010, most were Shanklin’s relatives or friends, as well as the councilwoman herself.

Shanklin initially disputed that she and her family members were participants in the classes, even though their names appear on many sign-in sheets. Shanklin later acknowledged that she and her son, Craig Shanklin, upholstered their own couches in the program.

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Haywood, who said she has known Barbara Shanklin for years, was paid $100 per session and was hired directly by the councilwoman.

Between November 2007 and August 2010, Haywood billed the city for $17,900. Her invoices provided no documentation about how many people attended the sessions or who they were.

City officials then began requiring sign-in sheets before paying the invoices. Haywood said she found the change “odd.”

“I just wondered why there wasn’t any rules, then all of a sudden there was,” she said.

From September 2010 until the program was shut down, Haywood submitted 15 sign-in sheets with her invoices, which represent 91 classes and show that 80 were attended by a single person.

The sign-in sheets also show that many times, the attendees were members of Shanklin’s family.

Barbara Shanklin signed in for 15 classes — 10 times being the only name on the sheet.

Craig Shanklin signed in for 23 classes and in each instance was the only person in the class.

Likewise, Barbara Shanklin’s daughter, Carla Shanklin, was the only person on the sign-in sheet the nine times she attended.

Fischer declined to comment on the program because of the ongoing review by the internal auditor.

Metro Council President Jim King also declined to comment, saying he wants to wait “until we get all the facts in.”

Open to the public?

Shanklin initially agreed to an interview, then declined the day before, saying she would only respond to written questions.

When asked through email why she and her children participated in the program, Shanklin responded that corrections officials told her that “anyone who entered the building where the program was held was required to sign in.”

“As part of the requirement by Corrections, I signed in,” Shanklin wrote. “There are other instances where members of my family would stop by to see me or check on something, they were required to sign in. While they may have asked the instructor a question, we did not fully participate in the program.”

But state Rep. Reggie Meeks, whose daughter Nila was a legislative aide in Shanklin’s office for several years, said Barbara Shanklin upholstered a couch during the classes he attended.

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Reggie and Nila Meeks participated in the program before the sign-in sheets were required, and both upholstered personal couches, he said.

“I was told it was a program that was open to the public, and that it was for the community,” Meeks said. “To my knowledge, there were no ex-offenders in the class. Everybody brought in their own furniture to work on.”

Other Shanklin family members were also signed in as students.

Shanklin’s 9-year-old granddaughter is the only person signed in for the class on Nov. 10, 2010. Shanklin said in the email that she accompanied her granddaughter that day, but the councilwoman’s name does not appear on the sheet.

Also signed in for two classes was Shanklin’s 28-year-old grandson, Gary Bohler, who worked as an aide in Shanklin’s Metro Council office.

The Courier-Journal reported last month that Bohler remained employed by Shanklin since 2003, despite multiple arrests on drug and robbery charges.

Shanklin eventually fired Bohler after the newspaper reported that he was paid multiple times while in jail and while a fugitive with warrants out for his arrest.

Carla Shanklin said in an interview that she never attended an upholstery class but said she attended “embroidery” classes taught by Haywood. Carla Shanklin said she never had any of her own furniture upholstered in the program.

“It was open to the community, and I’m a member of the community,” Carla Shanklin said. “What’s wrong with that?”

All paperwork associated with the program states that it was intended for ex-offenders.

Council funding OK'd

Money was first allocated to the program in March 2006, as a midyear budget adjustment.

The council approved a transfer of $38,700 to Metro Corrections “to be used for job training for ex-offenders,” according to the ordinance. The money was one of several budgetary transfers involving 10 city departments that year.

At least six more budget ordinances were passed in subsequent fiscal years, either carrying forward leftover money for the program or adding more money. All of those ordinances refer to it as a program for ex-offenders.

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After the program was canceled, the unused money was returned to the city’s general fund.

Judy Nadler, former mayor of Santa Clara, Calif., and now a senior fellow of government ethics at Santa Clara University, said it is a clear conflict of interest for elected officials to solicit money for a program, then allow their family to benefit from it.

Nadler also said it is unethical to provide money to a program with a specific purpose — such as training ex-offenders —and then not fulfill that mission.

“If you’re putting public money into a program that has a specific outcome … and you have one person utilizing that program, and that person is not a target client, you have a serious problem,” Nadler said.

Shanklin was one of five council members last year to sign a petition to have councilwoman Judy Green removed from office for unethical behavior, which included running a summer jobs program for youth that employed Green family members. The council later ousted Green.

Although Shanklin would not agree to an in-person interview, she called a reporter two weeks ago after learning that The Courier-Journal had made a public-information request related to the program.

“I didn’t have (any) furniture reupholstered,” Shanklin said at the time. “My kids didn’t reupholster. I never took anything from the community. I take nothing. I give to the community, out of my own pocket.”

But in the email interview last week, Shanklin acknowledged that she and her son did upholster their own furniture.

Shanklin said they purchased all the materials for the jobs themselves.

“I worked on a couch I own during the program, but I also worked on it during off hours when the class was not held,” Shanklin wrote. “My son, Craig, participated in the program but purchased all his materials for sectional pieces of a couch he was working on.”

The classes were held in a small house owned by the city that used to be a Louisville Metro Police substation. It is less than a block from Shanklin’s home in Newburg.

Early days

Before city funding was approved for the program, Heywood taught 12 classes in 2006 and was paid with checks signed by Shanklin on an account belonging to the Newburg Community Council, a nonprofit organization that was dissolved in 1995 by the secretary of state for failure to file paperwork.

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Shanklin, who was president of the Newburg Community Council at the time of its dissolution, said it still has an active bank account.

“The council’s name was retained only for banking,” Shanklin said. “There are many groups under the name of the account, such as the Petersburg/Newburg Improvement Association and others. Funding in the account comes from community events.

“I only wrote checks after the board of the Association approved payment.”

At the time the checks were written, Shanklin was president of the Petersburg/Newburg Improvement Association and sat on the three-person board.

Shanklin said she could not verify whether any ex-offenders participated in the program. She said unidentified board members of Newburg Weed and Seed “oversaw it (and) monitored participation in the first year by ex-offenders.”

Newburg Weed and Seed was a law enforcement program funded with federal grants. Stephanie Collins, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office of the Western District of Kentucky, said no federal grants were awarded to Shanklin’s ex-offender program.

“This … was a training program, not a job-placement program,” Shanklin wrote when asked if the results of her program were ever measured. “At one point it was felt the program would be more beneficial (if opened up) to the community.”